Ways to prepare for a house move when you are renting {AD} – Mummascribbles

With house prices not affordable to many, it seems that more and more people are renting their properties these days. There are so many pros and cons between renting a property. When we were renting, it was wonderful to know that if something went wrong with the property, I could just send an email or make a phone call and it would generally be dealt with pretty swiftly and at no cost to us. Now when the boiler goes wrong, the washing machine breaks, or we have leaky taps, we have to sort it ourselves – both in time and finances!

Of course, the downside to renting is never knowing how long you are going to be there. Between the years of me moving out of home, and moving in with the other half, I moved three times. And then even when I did move in with the other half, we rented the flat we lived in for three years and even lived there with Zach until he was 18 months old.

One other downside is the leaving at the end of the tenancy. The pressure of making sure everything is packed up, the working out of dates when leaving one place and moving to another (you never want to have to pay double rent), the huge deposits that you have to pay upfront every time, and the worry that you aren’t going to get your last deposit back because you are convinced that they will find some problem somewhere that they will make you take the blame for and deduct from your deposit.

All house moves tend to be stressful in one way or another (especially if you have children or animals), but if you are organised and well prepared, it should be a little easier on you.

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

Know where your documents are

Probably the most important thing is your inventory checklist, because this will help you to see back to how the property was before you moved in, and whether anything drastic has changed. You’ll also want your signed contract to hand so you can easily refer to anything required. And as well as these, make sure you have copies of receipts for your utilities, improvements and services that you may have paid for, your latest gas safety certificate, and any correspondence that you may have had with the letting agents over the time that you have lived there. If you have all of that to hand early on, it should be easy to work through any discrepancies that do arise.

Remember to cancel/move your utilities

You don’t want to be paying for other people to use your gas and electricity, so remember to give plenty of warning to the companies so that nothing can go wrong. The latest would ideally be 48 hours before you move, but I would arrange it a few weeks before so that you know it’s all sorted, the switch is set to happen, and you aren’t having to deal with it when you are in the midst of packing up your belongings.

I would recommend arranging for everything being switched off from midnight on the day you have moved out. You will no doubt be going back and forth on moving day, and having light, warmth and the ability to make tea will be essential (don’t forget to not pack the kettle!).

Re-direct your post

You really don’t want any post going to your old address, especially when you are renting and have no idea who will be moving into the property. Remember to put a re-direct on your post. There is a range of choice for length of re-direction, although I usually pick six months because I figure that by the end of the six months, anything that I had forgotten to change my address on, would have filtered through to me by that point.

Don’t forget to inform the local authority of your move

Again, you don’t want to be paying extra council tax by forgetting to tell the local authority of your move date. It’s normally pretty simple to do online, although can be a bit more complicated if you are changing authorities. That’s why you need to get it dealt with early on because you want it ticked off and knowing it’s all sorted.

Deal with the big clean

That’s the worst part right? We have spent days scrubbing our previous flats to make sure they are in perfect condition so that there can be no discrepancies over us getting our deposits back. In fact, when we moved from our rented flat to our mortgaged house, we had a week left on our contract and spent that week going back and forth, moving stuff out and cleaning it from top to bottom (or side to side in this case because it was a ground floor flat).

Of course, thinking back to the pain of that now, I don’t know why we just didn’t get an end of tenancy cleaning company to come in and do it for us. Especially the move after we had Zach. I feel like there would have been a higher benefit to losing out on a bit of money, to have gained back the time it took us to scrub the place clean!

Take photographic evidence

Make sure you take photos of your rental property just before you leave – just like the letting agents do with the moving in inventory. You want to be able to prove that you left it in a good way and photos are the perfect way to do this.

Take the readings

Remember to take the meter readings for gas, electricity, and water meters if you have them. Take photos of them so that you can prove what they were on the day that you left, and that way you won’t end up with some unexpected bill that they are trying to fob off on you.

Attend the final inspection

If you can, it is a good idea to be there when the final inspection happens so that any issues they have can be dealt with immediately. Most will be able to tell you there and then whether they expect to be processing the full deposit refund, and if they do find something, you aren’t sat around waiting for an email or phone call to find out.

And remember

It’s important to do a lot of this stuff in your new property as well. Try and attend the initial inventory check where you can. Take the meter readings when you first arrive – take photos of them and keep them as evidence. Make sure you have the copies of the gas safety certificate and EPC information, and politely remind them to protect your deposit with the deposit protection scheme. This was introduced when we were in the midst of our renting days and it really did put our minds at rest to know that they couldn’t just refuse to give us our money back.

Most of all, try and enjoy your move. Of course it’s going to be stressful, but remember the fun of actually moving into your new home. It’s always like a wonderful fresh start, and if anything, a chance to have a serious declutter!

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